Customer Ratings & Reviews

I'm now an Ooma convert! I researched this product (and other digital phone options) over the last year while I was deployed and as we moved and got set up in a new home decided to take the plunge and get one instead of a traditional land line. I had a little apprehension about how well it would work, but after reading a million positive personal reviews decided it was worth a go. Our previous service was through AT&T for a basic, basic phone service, with only 200 mins of long distance a month and no caller ID or other bells and whistles. That met our needs, but after surcharges, taxes, and other fees, that "basic" service was almost $50 each month! I was determined to find something that was cheaper and offered more features, particularly not having to worry about long distance minutes. So....got the Telo, established cable internet service (You DO want it to be fast enough, but today most cable/DSL service should be just fine), and followed the instructions to hook 'er up. Experience with the different stages: PACKAGING: Nicely done. Classy, and well laid out. INSTRUCTIONS: Basic fold-out sheet designed to allow anyone to hook it up. I'm pretty tech-saavy, but it would not have mattered. Anyone can follow the well-thought-out instructions. Seriously. ACCOUNT AND HARDWARE SET-UP: If your internet service is established, everything you need will already be in place. You just plug this in between the source outlet and your cable/DSL modem. All hardware parts you need for the Telo itself are included (Basically just an Ethernet cable and power cable). You can use ANY phone with this system. I plugged our old base station into the Telo and our regular phones work just great. Just turn off the answering machine if your base has one, as the Telo will serve that purpose, and tends to be much clearer anyway! You WILL need access to the internet during set-up to establish your phone number, so make sure you've got your computer fired up. I was using our laptop wirelessly at the time, and it worked great. When you go online to the Ooma site to set up your new account and pick a phone number, we found the process to be very smooth. You're given a choice of numbers after you choose the area code you want (love that feature) or you can choose to have your old number ported from your legacy service, which takes a few weeks. We went new, picked one, and voila! we were in business instantly. You WILL need your credit card handy when you establish the account, as you WILL have to pay the federal taxes/fees for your area. You can get an estimate of these by punching in your ZIP on the Ooma site. For us, it will be $3.47 a month. Woo hoo! I'll take that over $50 a month any day. Even if you keep the Premier features (you get a free 60-day trial upon set-up), that's still only $10 more a month). Those additional features and associated fees are what Ooma is basing its business model on, so hopefully they'll keep making enough to stay in business. They've lasted since 2007 or so, so something must be working. Either way, I'll have this bad boy paid off in 6 months based on savings alone, so no worries! CALL QUALITY: So far, everything has worked as advertised right out of the box. One thing I have noticed--and truly no BS--the call clarity is excellent. I find that ironic, considering we had a dedicated phone line before, but it really is good. Every once and a while we have noticed a tiny delay, kind of like a cell phone delay, but not always. Believe I'll look at tweaking the settings per what folks have written about with regard to the QoS stuff. Minor issue at the most. BOTTOM LINE: No dealing with the phone company, no more worries about large bills, and many more features than we ever had before. I love being able to be anywhere on the road and dial in either via phone or the Ooma site itself and check phone messages. Really simple, very clear, and just works great. Thanks, Ooma dudes, for a great product.

We purchased the Ooma Telo system from Best Buy about two weeks ago. It has worked flawlessly and, believe it or not, it was just as easy to install as what the manufacturer said! I just followed the simple instructions and had the system up and running in less than an hour (which is amazing if you knew how little I know about computers and electronics!!!). When you choose the Ooma, you will need to pick a new telephone number from the list you are given. From there, follow the directions and get ready for a crystal clear sound. Our monthly bill will be about $3.50 for taxes, etc. What a savings! The system should be paid for by the end of the year with just the saving on our monthly bill!

I had Vonage for 2 years and had constant problems with sending a fax. Most companies use PC fax now and require a good VoIP connection. After hours on the phone I gave up and switched to OOMA. What a difference it made with the voice quality !! I paid almost 37.00 $ each month incl. taxes and other fees for Vonage. With my OOMA service I pay as little as 3.57 $ a month ( inludes 911 service ) and I use my home phone alot due to bad AT&T cell reception. Give it a try and if you don't like it you have 30 days to take it back to B.B. I would def. recommend this service to anyone trying to save money and get great home phone service.

I had done some background research on OOMA prior to purchase and most reviews were quite positive. I purchased their last generation HUB and Scout package on clearance- but its functionally almost identical to the telo (current model). I have tried Vonage, Comcast Residential and Broadvoice (Current) for with mixed results -main issues choppy voice, one way audio, phantom ring (support usually passes it off as firewall issue/network congestion)-never their network as the cause. I have worked in the IP Telephony industry for over a decade so I have had experience with over 40 providers and remained skeptical that anyone could offer a high quality residential offering for a reasonable price. Ooma has radically changed my perception of what is possible-low cost service, high quality voice. Setup was a breeze (I have a very complex home office network), calls to their support were promptly answered (though not always exactly right answer out of the gates). Highly recommended. Can't wait until they come out with a business class offering for my clients.

Let me just mention one bad experience. When I activated the Ooma, I orderd the number porting for $40. The fraud prevention called me from my credit card company and they asked me if I authorized this transaction from Ooma. I told them yes. So I know the transaction went through. However, I'm guessing because I didn't include my phone bill (Ooma lets you attach a copy of your phone bill when you activate) they must not of had information needed. I carefuly checked my accounts and say that the transaction was no longer listed in my account after it said pending. It was no big deal. I then attempted the port process again by logging into the Ooma, this time including my phone bill, and it worked. Now that we got the bad out of the way, let me tall you about the good. The call quality the first day was not impressive I also couldn't make any 10 digit phone calls within my area code, but outside my area code worked fine. Also, my name didn't appear on the caller ID the first day when I called other people. That only happened during the first day. After that, all of those problems went away. The only issue with the ease of use has absolutely nothing to do with Ooma. Unless you did your own phone wiring, you should have 2 junction boxes outside your home. One will explicitly say customer access. Once your number has been ported or you get the Ooma up and running, you need to disconnect the junction box that says customer access. This cannot be any easier. I went ahead and disconnected both boxes, and then it was a pain to reconnect them in the non customer box out side of my home. You do this so you can distribute dial tone to all phone jacks, and instead of connecting the wall port to the phone, you connect the phone port to the phone, but again make sure your old service is canceled first and you disconnect those cables!!! Once you do this once it's easy to do it again, but if you don't know what you're doing it can get you. We're very happy with the voice quality. The sound quality if much better than a cell phone. There is very little difference in equality between a land line and this. I've even loaded a 14 minute You Tube video while talking to someone and it didn't cause it to break up at all. We are Ooma premiere customers. I absolutely love the features where I can filter certain callers to voice mail. I get voice mails emailed to my inbox. I can forward calls to my cell phone if the Internet goes down. The instant second line does really work. However, it's a pain to tell someone who has the Ooma handset next to them that they have a phone call because when they pick it up they will get the other line. I haven't figured out if you can choose what line to pick up on yet. In the final analysis, this system is very easy to setup for the average user for what most people will use it for. If you have enough expansion phones and don't rely on your phone jacks, the setup and everything else is cake walk. If however, you decide you want your call jacks, you just go out to the CUSTOMER junction box mounted on the ouside wall of your home and disconnect them. Also, this can get complicated if you have DSL. We have cable, so the disconnecting of the phone would have been easy if I had read the Ooma forums more thoroughly. I also highly recommend some kind of battery backup. The one I have listed below is not necessarily the exact one you need. You need your modem, router, and Ooma to have a battery backup so when your power goes down you can still make phone calls.

When I first learned about Ooma, I was skeptical. I spent three months researching int. When I finally purchased it, I did so because of Best Buy's and Ooma's 30 day return guarantee. So, I knew I had nothing to lose. After bringing it home, it only took me about 20 minutes to get it up and running. Ooma provides a 30 day trial of their premier service, which includes a second phone number. The allow you to choose from a list of available numbers from almost all, if not all states in the US. So, I chose one New York area code and number and one from Colorado. The Colorado number enabled friends I have there to dial a number local to them (only seven digits) and reach me in New York. I tried Ooma for only one week before I was totally sold out on it. I then "ported" (transferred my regular phone number from the phone company I had at the time to Ooma). I did have some slight echo and delay at first, but soon learned that the problem is easily adjusted in settings to match my internet speed and other conditions. This may be what some people who have been unhappy with Ooma needed to do. I have had my Ooma for three months now. I did purchase their Premier services which allowed me to keep my second number and a few other features. By paying for a full year in advance ($119.00), Ooma waived the $40.00 porting fee. Other than that, I have only been charged $3.57 per month. This is the Federal mandated 911 surcharge and other fees. I disconnected the old phone company's Interface from the distribution hub for my house phone jacks. This enabled me to plug Ooma in one of them, and have all the other wired phones in the house to ring when I get a call I can answer from any of them. I can also check my voice mail from any of them by simply dialing my own phone number. Some of the reviews here are talking about the Ooma handset (sold separately). That is separate from the Ooma base. I would not give the handset a very good rating. The only thing I use it for is so I can use both phone lines for different calls. That can only be done with the hand set. You can still use more than one phone for the same call (same phone line).

I've been using Ooma for about 2 weeks and think it is absolutely amazing. I highly recommend it. The setup was extremely easy between the modem and the router. Within 30 minutes it had configured itself, I had a new phone number and I was making phone calls. I called China yesterday and the quality was better than I've ever experienced over a land-line. I literally had to hold the receiver away from my head because it came in so clearly. I have two minor issues with the device, however. Although the sound quality is superb, there is a definite delay between speakers. To test this, call someone and count "1-2-3" in a steady tempo and ask the other person to say "4" on the next beat. By the time it reaches you it's delayed. Even with people who are just two streets away you would think you were calling long distance. You quickly get used to it, but I wonder if the people I'm talking to are annoyed. The other issue I have is that my modem and router are not in a centrally convenient location like the kitchen. Since the Telo is also an answering machine, I can't see that I have messages unless I go upstairs. This can be solved by just not using the Telo answering system and continuing to use my handset's, but then I've just lost one of the cool Telo features. The other solution is to buy the Ooma handset and put that in the kitchen since it allows you to see and retrieve messages, but I've heard mixed to bad reviews regarding that device--perhaps they'll get it right with version 2.0. Plus it's another 50 bucks. Oh, one other thing, it's my humble opinion that those people who are having trouble with the Ooma and it's installation are either not tech savvy (not that you need to be) or else they have other issues, such as a poor internet connection. EVERYTHING is spelled out for you. Some people have talked about "hidden fees". If they just read the product description they'd see that it is all spelled out very clearly. For example, there is a yearly fee of about $12 that is a federal tax of some sort. That is written right on the Telo box; it's on their website; it's in numerous blogs regarding the Ooma. Do your homework, and then decide. In summary, I highly recommend the system. It truly works, and works well.

I have owned one of these for almost 2 years now. My in-laws just purchased one for their house to replace their secondary land line. If you have a reliable internet connection then this is a great phone for you. I would not recommend trying to use this on poor low-bandwidth DSL or you will have call quality issues which is the justification for removing 1 point in performance. Never had a dropped call, and call quality is great. Setup only takes about 10 minutes. Note: You do have to pay taxes on the service that is less than $10/year which they will automatically charge your credit card for.

First, I recommend this to anyone wanting to lower costs. We have been using ours for over two years, and have experienced very little to comment on as issues that would deter anyone interested in this product. Pros: Easy to set up and use. Basic features like call waiting and caller ID at no extra charge. Ability to check voice mails via internet instead of calling and having to enter codes. Reliable connections. Low overall cost once you've gotten past the time to make up the initial purchase price. Cons: Lose power, you lose your phone, just like any other phone with applied power. Initial buy-in cost (however, if you take your monthly phone bill and see how many months it would take to make the cost up, it is usually only 4-6 months, then it starts saving money). The power jack on the back of the unit pops out easy, so we have to make sure it doesn't get moved. Also occasionally, calls will drop, but we have not been able to figure out if it was the Ooma, the router, modem, or an internet glitch that caused it. Also, unable to turn off the Ooma answering function if you want to use one on another phone system (like our cordless). You have to set the pickup ring number higher than your other system, although it still will snatch a call now and then. Other info: Power loss can be avoided if you have your Internet modem, router, and Ooma on a Uninterruptable Power Supply (UPS) system (get one in the computer section), which will maintain power for at least several hours, depending on the power draw to the battery in the UPS. Most states you will have a monthly tax surcharge, in MD it runs about $4.00/month ($50 a year approximately). Still cheaper than paying a flat fee of $45.00 every month forever which the local cable company offered us. We had one instance where the Ooma system had a glitch which affected our system for a day or so, but it was something odd, and Ooma was on it from the get-go to resolve the issue. If you have high speed internet, this is a great product. It provides all the basic features most people will need on the basic plan, and the Premier plan is great for a second line (for a teen, or a home based business). E911 is used to map your address. We had a new house built with an address not in the USPS database, so it took a bit of coordination for them to accept the street address. Most established addresses won't have this issue, and it is not an Ooma issue. Enjoy it!!!

So I've been hanging onto my phone land line mainly because of the combination of "it just works" and not wanting to lose my phone number. I just found out that with these VOIP systems, you CAN port your phone number over, so basically the trade-off is saving money with the loss of reliability. In my case though, I'm not a heavy phone user, and I was tired of paying AT&T $32 a month for little use. Ooma's cost is mainly up front, though there's still a <$5 a month fee for fed, state, & local taxes, so that can't be helped. Regardless, this will pay for itself in less than a year. If you want want more features, you can purchase their premium level. I went ahead and did that for my first year, since the $40 cost of porting my number over will get waived, so that's half to a third of the cost right there. (As it turned out, I got the premium for $99 instead of the $120) Anyway, make sure you have reliable internet service first. Then get one of these units and try it out for a few weeks, make some calls, make sure the sound quality works for you. When you decide to keep it, you can contact Ooma to start the port process. Anyway, I'm VERY happy with my Ooma, I'm going to tell everyone I know about it. The sound quality and options are great.

I replaced both my AT&T landline and DSL service. Ooma is doing the voice side and Charter Communications is now the Internet side. My monthly cost for both voice and Internet has gone down from $95 monthly to $33.50 a month. I subscribed to the Ooma Premier service which adds $10 monthly to Ooma's basic charges. Set up the Ooma unit was a breeze and I ported over my AT&T number two days ago. One consideration with any Internet phone service is power considerations. Obviously if you give up the land line and you have a power outage, your network equipment including the Ooma Telo device will fail. With Ooma's optional Premier service, loss of network connectivity will trigger Ooma's forwarding service. In my case that means my home phone number will ring to my cellular phone in case Internet connectivity fails. I decided to add a battery backup UPS as a safety which will is connected to my Ooma Telo, my cable modem, and my router. This will give me 91 minutes of power backup to get me through the bumps that occasionally occur in the utility grid. Set up was a breeze and with us approaching the three week mark with the service, I have no misgivings about finally breaking the tie to AT&T. Considering the initial cost of the Ooma Telo, a UPS, and my cable modem, I'll save about $200 year one. Beginning year two even with the increase in the cost of the Internet service from the initial promo rate, and considering my initial hardware costs will be paid, my annual savings will increase to over $500 monthly. I expect even more savings since AT&T seems to be increasing costs monthly for both voice and DSL service.

Setup was easy and pretty straight forward. Read other reviews about set up but I just followed instructions and it worked. Was going to try and use land line w/ Ooma for a few days but wanted house phones to ring through Ooma so did not continue. I have cable modem and the call quality is excellent. With our cell phone we never come close to using our minutes but I do not want to give every tom, dick and harry my cell number. I do not plan on using the premium service in Ooma. Get want I want from my Google Voice number plus I can forward GV to any number if something happens to Ooma. If not for GV I would give the premium service a whirl. And you can fax! Two of my daughters have a M.J. and the call quality is no where near what Ooma produces. Over all the Ooma is a little pricey but if they stay in business at least for a few years I will come out ahead. Want to call anywhere in USA, get great call quality and save some $, give Ooma a try.

I've never had a better IP phone in my life and it's completely free after buying the box. I had 8x8 for 3 years and Lingo for 2. Both cost me $360 a year or more and the service was terrible, with call centers in India. I bought this box for less than the cost of a year's service. I was hesitant, but after a year, I'm delighted. It's as easy as visiting the website, enabling your box, and plugging it in, easy as 1,2,3. Quick and I've NEVER had to speak with a representative. Even the device is far more innovative and aesthetically pleasing than those provided by the likes of Lingo adn 8x8. You'll automatically get a trial of the ooma premier service which is incredible and if you choose to buy it, it costs less than any other provider. There is no payment method connected at sign up though. It simply times out after a month or two. You'll get an email telling you your trial is about to expire, inviting you to subscribe. I personally loved the options, but opted to remain free. The service doesn't degrade as a result. Best quality I've ever had.

What a GREAT idea- you already have highspeed Internet, and you are ALREADY paying for that- why ALSO pay for your phone service? Comcast is already doing it- their telephone service is just a dressed up VoIP on their Internet service. So why pay twice for what can be done on an existing service? So I read Daniela's review (below), and while she does make some good points, she is also very short sighted in her review, and I wanted to set some of her misconceptions straight. >>> The Ooma Telo is no longer a free phone service like the old Ooma. No, and it no longer claims to be, Times change, regulatory agencies see a new place to tax, not exactly Oomas fault is it? Goverments will tax anywhere and everywhere they can. I think it is amaing that Oooma kept it to ONLY 12 bucks a year. AND they grandfather in older users, so we still have free phone service! >>> To get Caller ID Names you must pay for the $120/year premier service. Again, true. But show me a phone company- ANY landline phone service- with FREE caller ID. I am waiting.... Oh, none, huh? I think Qwest charges 5 bucks a month for this- that is HALF the Premier service cost. Looks like a GOOD deal to me, with all the other cool things included in Premier. >>> You must pay $50/year for voicemail or $120/year for premier service to get this feature with the Telo. Same as above. Double down. >>> Good VoIPs have an included service that forwards phone calls to another number when your Internet connection is down. WHat? Is 10 bucks a month TOO MUCH for you? If you NEED it, p[ay for it. At least you have a choice here, and if you don't need it, you do not need tto get it. If you need it, PAY for it, but don't complain because this (and everything else) is not free, too. >>> Telephone or cable phone companies will port your number for free. Be aware you must pay Ooma $40 to port True, but again, if you don't need it, it is not a hidden fee in your monthly bill. >>> Ooma has moved so many basic features to their premier plan that it is almost necessary to buy the $120/year premier plan. For $250 you get a dial tone and caller id numbers. Anything else expect to pay more to Ooma. Yeah, so what? Personally, I do not think that 10 bucks a month is too much for the tons of services I get. It is FAR less than I was paying Qwest, and I get a LOT more. Like caller blacklist- I would pay 10 bucks a month JUST for that. At least you still have a free option- try getting that from Qwest or Comcast. If you need something more, than MAN UP and pay for what you use, don't cry because it is not free.

The Ooma Telo has been in service for a few weeks in the house now and everything is great. Installation was extremely easy. Just make sure you have high speed internet and you are all set for good voice quality and pretty much free calls to all of US. I pay $3.47 a month for tax and fees in my area. Can't beat that. My old phone provider charges $25/mo just for basic service, not to mention all the long distance charges on top of that. I dump them immediately after I got my Ooma. Voice quality is great. My family and friends didn't notice any difference during phone conversations.

I'm not sure why I waited so long to buy one of these. It looked interesting from the outset, but I guess I didn't trust it. I think I was afraid of hidden costs or poor quality of product and service. WOW! I WAS COMPLETELY WRONG! The product is first class quality, even to include the packaging. The setup was extremely easy, as well ... and it went exactly according to the instructions. As for quality, it's better than my land line. And here's the really great feature ... it travels with me around the world. I'm writing this review from Portugal, and my OOMA setup is here on my desk. I have "local" stateside phone service wherever I go. It works exactly like my home phone, except the quality is better. Congratulations to the OOMA team for a really great and useful product.

If you're looking at this, you're likely looking at alternatives to your land line phone. If that's the case, you're on the right trail. After getting the latest AT&T phone bill with yet another increase in prices, I started looking for alternatives. I mean $82 for phone and "pro" level Internet access is significant. So I went to BestBuy and picked up this Ooma device and brought it home. On speedtest.net, my DSL feed showed 2.74mb download and 374kb upload. Hooking up the Ooma device was painless and within about 3 minutes, I had my new phone number to test things out with. In doing some testing, there was a noticeable delay. It's similar to the delay most get on a cell phone, but this was bit worse. After doing lots of research, I came to the conclusion that my internet feed was too slow. Even with the delay, I decided that $38/month for my landline phone was too much, so I started proceeding with the "port" process to transfer my home phone number to Ooma. Then I hit a speed bump - if you have DSL and a landline phone on the same line, you need to call the phone company and have them separate your Internet connection to a "dry loop" so it won't get dropped when the phone company transfers your phone number. I figured if I'm going to go through all that trouble and still be stuck with slow internet speeds, it's time to just throw AT&T completely out. I checked around and subscribed to RoadRunner's "up to 10mb/s" product. They came out a week later and hooked things up, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that I often get over 30mb/s download speeds and 960kb/s upload speeds. We tried Ooma again and the delays were greatly reduced. The day after they installed the cable Internet feed, I continued with Ooma's phone porting process. Just 5 calendar days later (including a weekend,) my number was switched over with no hassles at all. Voice quality is great. They tell you to put the Ooma "in front of" your router (which means between your modem and your router.) That will work with most homes, but not mine since I have some inbound traffic. So I have mine set up behind the router and even replaced my very old router with one that understands QoS packets (a Linksys wireless router with Tomato firmware.) I don't think that most people will need to go through that much trouble, but I wanted to tweak it to be "just right" in my home. It is working fantastic for us, and I'm looking forward to saving over $40/month now and yet have an internet connection 13 times faster than I used to have. Here were some cons that I found along the way: *There are no handsets with this device and some of the "advanced" functionality only works with their handsets, and their handsets aren't the greatest. They're expensive and they feel cheap. *For good voice quality, you need a good Internet connection. From what others have said, it should be a download speed of 6mb/s or more and an upload speed of 512kb/s or more. *Ooma's technical support cannot answer more advanced questions and they made no effort to find out. They just kept pointing me to sites others made which did not address the very specific technical questions I had. I had to find out myself using trial-and-error methods. With that extremely long write-up, the summary is: If "almost as good as your normal phone" is acceptable, then this is for you. The web page for setup couldn't be much more simple, and everything is extremely easy to set up. In my case, the $38/month portion of my phone bill was reduced to $3.47/month (you still have to pay for 911 service and taxes.) Ooma's service is free, but Uncle Sam still manages to get his money.

I have had Vonage for almost 2 years and their service is nowhere near as good as Ooma. The set up was easy and took less than 30 minutes. The calls are very clear and don't hang up and although the service is not 100% free (you still must pay local taxes, 911 surcharge, and other federal taxes) it is still a much better value than other services.

I purchased the Ooma Telo at my local Best Buy on sale for $199.99 in early August. I had it up and running including the online registration in less than half an hour. The sound quality is outstanding, I have the base connected to one of the ethernet connections on my cable wireless modem/router. I have a phone line splitter inserted in 1 of my phone wall jacks and the ooma phone out line connected to the splitter, all of my phones are now on the ooma system. I had my existing phone number ported over the process took almost 4 weeks. After the number was ported over I cancelled my my old service now I am up and running on the ooma system only. I went from paying approx. $35.00 a month to paying approx $3.47 a month(these are the mandatory taxes) I have no need for the ooma premium services so my account is set up to cancel the service after the 2 free month trial is over. The entire process to this point has been extremley easy. I highly recommend, wish I had done it sooner, my total expenses should be recouped in about 6 months after that it's no more pnone bills

I must tell all of you first. I hate phones. My only reason for having one is for Family or my work to contact me. In 1998 I cut the cord and have PAID out the nose for a cell phone. This technology makes it feasble to have a home phone once again. If you can stomach the up front cost of this unit, and buy a years worth of Premium Service. It will start paying you back with HUGE savings. Has soon as my cell phone number is paired. I will be telling them GOOD BYE!!! My Hi speed internet is $32 a month. I will now have my streaming movies, Xbox 360 gaming, and my phone all through my internet connection. I have a great hi speed conection. It's been out only twice in the last four years. I am also a firm believer in my 2nd amendment rights. So if 911 is down for a minute, I should fair well. It's a leap of tech faith I am willing to take. The phone service charges will add up to $3.76 a month for 911 service and some tax BS. This means I will be saving $36.24 a month not paying for a cell phone. In eight months it will have PAID for ITSELF. The rest will be GRAVY for me to spend on something I would rather have. IE: FOOD, GAS, or What ever else I want....?